CHAPTER VIII

Man: Mystery and Wonder

Man is yet a mystery in spite of great penetration into anthropology, psychology, sociology, and biology. Even yet when all our studies are complete--if this were possible--man may continue to be a mystery. Socrates' famous dictum "know thyself" still stands as one of the greatest needs of man. It appears easier to put a man on the moon than to explore the depths of man's being. Even where we have been interested in knowing about man, man is not always the object of study. Animal studies--white rats, rabbits, and other creatures--are used to infer applications to man. The proper study of mankind is "man" has not always been accepted as true or relevant.

The mystery of man is compounded even more by the choice of standards. What is man? is hard to answer. Vital statistics like 6'5" at 190 pounds offers little in determining what man is. Sören Kierkegaard raised this question in an existential fashion. One may grow to proper heights, marry, beget children, and live to old age without asking the question, "Am I a man?"1One might well imagine the chagrin and bewilderment of a husky football player if asked in dead seriousness: are you a man?

What is it to be a man? Obviously, manhood is more than having a body, begetting, working, eating, and sleeping. Most animals do this. Is man only an animal? Is there a basis for talking about man as a qualitatively different being from other animals? There is a strong and influential tradition in philosophy that affirms man to be unique and qualitatively different from other animals. But modern science, on the other hand, appears to answer the question of man's nature more in similarity to the lower animals.

We will now turn to consider these traditions, the scientific, the Greek view, and the Judaeo-Christian.

I. Views About the Nature of Man

A. A Scientific View of Man.

There is no single scientific view of man. Man may be studied from the vantage point of

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was born in Danzig, Germany, and has the reputation of being the philosopher of pessimism. He incorporated the idea of the will into his philosophy and his principal work is The World as Will and Idea.

many disciplines. To the physicist man has shape and occupies space, he can be measured and described in mathematical terms of space and time. To the chemist man may be studied as a conglomeration of the earth's components. But perhaps the most significant contribution to the study of man comes from biology. The modern biologist fits himself in the category of objective science while the ancient biologist was often the philosopher, like Aristotle.

Several points can be made as the biologist sums up the meaning of man.

l. Man is an animal that is akin to all forms of life.2 Obviously he is closer to primates than he is to a tree, but there is a kinship that is born of the continuity from the most primeval form of life to the present. Science has its own myth, or saga, or paradigm, or epic for explaining the origin of man.3 Man is the result of mechanistic evolution that is entirely without help as implied in a Creator.4 Simpson notes: "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned."5 Purpose is only real when man is already here; only man has purpose.

Biological science stops at the point of the origin of life. The basis of life--matter, atmosphere, elements, and the necessary ingredients for supporting life--are beyond the range of biology to explain. Simpson affirms that "the ultimate mystery is beyond the reach of scientific investigation and probably of the human mind. There is neither need nor excuse for postulation of nonmaterial intervention in the origin of life, the rise of man, or any other part of the long history of the material cosmos."6 But in spite of this fortuitous beginning of man, Simpson and others make a great deal out of the rise of man and the long history of the cosmos.

2. How did man come to be? Organic evolution is the answer in which the basis for life existed and in the unknown past of two billion years ago, life spontaneously happened. It developed to the point at which a million years ago the creature that would be man took an independent turn away from its brother and ancestors and ultimately became man. The following gives a good example of the reasoning: "If we go back far enough in time, we find a period in which no human form existed. It is evident, then, that man as we know him today has emerged from earlier, nonhuman forms."7 In a similar fashion, Dobzhansky says, "But the evidence shows conclusively that man arose from forebears who were not men, although we have only the most fragmentary information concerning the stages through which the process has passed."8

3. The unique thing about man in the scientific view is that man thinks. But why does man think in a superior way to other creatures? The implication is that man's brain size, his erect posture, and the position of the brain account for it. The size of modern man's brain averages about 1350 cubic centimeters, although Jonathan Swift's brain measured about 2000 cc. and Anatole France was only 1100 cc. Earlier creatures such as the Java Man (Pithecanthropus) had brain sizes between 750 to 900 cc. The Peking man (Sinathropus pekinesis) was larger at 900 to 1200 cc. The Neanderthalers had about 1450 cc. and the Cro-Magnon came up to 1650 cc. While it is easy to see that the larger, later brainy creatures were more intelligent, "it does not follow that significant correlations may be drawn between brain size and intelligence . . . There is indeed no evidence that persons having large brains are either more or less intelligent than those having smaller brains."9 But Dobzhansky says:

However incomplete our knowledge of human ancestry, there is scarcely any doubt that the development of brain power, of intelligence, was the decisive force in the evolutionary process which culminated in the appearance of the species to which we belong. Natural selection has brought about the evolutionary trend towards increasing brain power because brain power confers enormous adaptive advantages on its possessors. It is obviously brain power, not body power, which makes man by far the most successful biological species which living matter has produced.10

The natural question arises: does size produce quality? How does one go from brain size to brain power? Does brain size mean higher intelligence? At this point also we might indicate an important question concerning man's knowledge. Is his knowledge and ability different in quality or only in quantity from other animals? This question will be considered later.

4. How does man acquire values? Sensitive biologists who are frankly mechanistic do argue that man has arrived on the scene without design, but nevertheless, man is not merely a creature. The idea that man is "nothing but" an animal is rejected by many biologists. There are actually two kinds of biologists at this point: theistic and non-theistic. A theistic biologist would incorporate God's involvement in evolution and God would be the originator of values. But we are interested in the non-theistic view here because science is supposed to be descriptive and therefore God must not be appealed to in the biological mode.

Using Simpson as an example of the biologist's position, he does claim that "man is a moral animal . . . all men make judgements of good or bad in ethics and morals . . . It requires no demonstration that a demand for ethical standards is deeply ingrained in human psychology. Like so many human characteristics, indeed most of them, this trait is both innate and learned."11

Simpson describes some of the diverse ethical systems that were developed by evolutionists. The first grew out of Darwin's followers and is called by T.H. Huxley "the gladiatorial theory of existence and concluded that the evolutionary ethic must be, first, every man for himself, then every tribe, every nation, every class, and so on, for the `struggle for existence.'"12

This is rejected by Simpson because (l) struggle is only one aspect of evolution, (2) struggle is not the same as natural selection, and (3) the inherent ruthless competition was morally repugnant to sensitive people.13

Later, after Huxley, Herbert Spencer proposed a "life ethic" in which it is reasoned that life is good because evolution has brought it about and what promotes life is therefore good. Actions that do not promote life are not good. This is criticized as a variation on the survival ethic which was rejected above. If life is good, every man is for himself again.

Another example was "aggregation ethics." In this, evolution has brought about different levels of existence, with increased complexity and perfection on each level. The levels are (l) the protozoans, (2) the metazoans, and (3) the hyperzoans. In this latter level man emerges as an individual but is part of the whole. As a part of the whole he exists for the whole rather than for himself. But this is rejected as bad biology for it is evident "that merging of the individual into a higher organic unit is not a common trend in evolution and, specifically, is not at all a trend in human evolution."14

These attempts at creating a biological ethic are rejected by Simpson because (l) they are related to all of life, while ethics is limited to a human endeavor, (2) because there is no way of finding out what evolution is up to as a standard, and (3) evolution itself has no basis for giving us a standard of human conduct.

What then is the basis of an ethical adventure? Since the old evolution up to man is a-moral, and since "evolution has no purpose, man must supply this for himself."15 The first ethical affirmation is knowledge and its spread.16 Simpson admits that the old claim that science is free of value judgements and should make none is false. "Science is essentially interwoven with such judgements."17 The scientist must evaluate the knowledge he acquires and then transmit it to others. In addition to knowledge, there is responsibility. Responsibility is primarily personal but has sweeping implications for the community, nation, and world. On this, it is "good, right, and moral to recognize the integrity and dignity of the individual and to promote the realization or fulfillment of individual capacities."18 This is true for the individual as well as the social group and all mankind.

Simpson justifies these two points, knowledge and responsibility, because they are rooted in man's nature. They have "arisen from and are inherent in his evolutionary history and status. Responsibility is something that he has just because he is human and not something he can choose to accept or to refuse."19

Simpson's attempt to construct a value system along evolutionary lines is commendable. But there are some problems. First, why adopt these two criteria of knowledge and responsibility? Knowledge is useful for good or bad reasons, but knowledge is related to something else--preserving and upgrading the quality of life. This means survival again. In this proposal, it is arguable whether Simpson has advanced beyond the systems he has rejected as untenable. Even responsibility can be treated in the same fashion--I am responsible to whom and why? To preserve life again? What other reason!

Second, there is the problem of intangibles. Can there be such a thing as evolutionary ethics? If there cannot be meaning in evolution, how can one argue that evolution lends support to purpose, meaning, and morality in the human realm? Simpson does claim that man is the only ethical animal. "The ethical need and its fulfillment are also products of evolution, but they have been produced in man alone."20 Can a blind, non-purposive system produce the purposive? It is difficult to see how it could, and no indication is given how it did.

These are only two points of criticism. Dobzhansky criticized the numerous attempts, like Simpson's, of sketching evolutionary ethics, saying, "Evolutionary ethics have not been formulated yet, and one may reasonably doubt that they can be made scientifically convincing or aesthetically satisfying."21 Many critics would concur.

We now turn to the second tradition.

B. The Greek Tradition.

The Greek philosophical tradition is a broad spectrum but what is usually intended is the influential movement initiated by the three great patriarchs of philosophy: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. For brevity sake, Plato will be used as a model with some additional comments from Aristotle. Several elements make up the view of man.

l. A High God or Eternal God created lesser gods who are then given the responsibility to create man. This work of the lesser gods is fashioned on His model, but it removes the direct link between man and the high God. This is consistent with the Platonic disdain for the body which will be evident below.

2. Man, without women, is created and within man is placed a divine element or material that is immortal. This may be described popularly as man's soul which is akin to deity and alien to the body.

3. The first men lived cowardly or immoral lives and were subject to rebirth in the "second generation as women, and it was therefore at that point of time that the gods produced sexual love, constructing in us and in woman a living creature itself instinct with life."22 This bit of cosmology may explain why homosexual love was accepted in Plato's Symposium as superior to heterosexual love. It is also the intellectual background in western thought for arguing that sex per se is in some way evil. The fact that evil men became women is carried further in its logic by Plato in saying that "Land animals came from men who had no use for philosophy."23

4. Bodily existence is second-rate. There are two emphases about the body in Plato's thought that appear contradictory. The first may be called "body-culture" which is related to our olympic tradition. This is seen in the Republic in which the development of the body is a good thing. This will be elaborated on in our next point. However, here we can note that the body is deprecated considerably. Plato wrote in the Phaedo:

For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is liable also to disease which overtake and impede us in the search after true being; it fills us full of love and lusts, and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolery, and in fact as men say takes away from us the power of thinking at all.24

The thought is pursued further that the purification of the soul comes only in the separation of the body. The body is compared to a chain that holds on to the soul keeping it from better things. This negativism toward the body eventually is accepted in Neo-Platonic influences that later regard the body as evil. This flowed into the monastic tradition in which normal desires of the body are rejected, i.e., the marriage relationship.

5. The wonder of man is reason, and this relates to his deliverance from the body life. Reason is the divine in man. Man is described as a creature of body and soul, on the one hand, and as a tri-part creature on the other. In the Republic, much emphasis is given to the three-fold elements of man's nature: the rational, the courageous, and the appetitive. The courageous and appetitive are mortal while the rational is immortal. Each element is important in its rightful place. Interaction takes place between them, but it is meant to be a harmonious, not a tyrannical interaction. The rational has a desire for truth, requires courage to follow the truth, but chaos can reign in man and he can be a coward, or ruled by lust, or love of food. However, if justice reigns in his existence he will act properly, make the right choices, and live the good life. If there is injustice--each part of man's existence not getting its rightful demands--then there will be strife in the person and he will not be a just man, nor temperant, nor courageous.

6. Death does not resolve man's problems. Souls of men who have not given up their craving for body existence will be punished and imprisoned in another body.25 Because the soul is immortal it can be released from bodily existence by "attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom."26 This means that the body's loves and lusts must be forsaken for the intellectual goals of the mind. If not, a system of destinies is indicated in Plato for those who persist in their unjust and immoral lives. People guilty of gluttony and drunkenness return to life as asses and animals of that sort. The unjust, the tyrants and the violent men "will pass into wolves and into hawks or kites."27

This system is based upon the idea that only the pure will be allowed in the presence of the gods. Who are these people? The lovers of knowledge who are the philosophers.28 The true philosophers are those who "abstain from all fleshy lusts, and hold out against them and refuse to give themselves up to them . . . because they dread the dishonor or disgrace of evil deeds."29 Death is feared only by those who are lovers of the body or money, or power but who are not lovers of wisdom.30 Death to the philosopher is really a liberation from the downward drag of the body.

7. Since man's highest good is reason, the way of deliverance from the problems and temptations of life is related to the intellect and contemplation. Socrates affirmed: "But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly immortal there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For the soul on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education."31 Aristotle is true to this tradition when he pleads "rather ought we, so far as in us lies, to put on immortality and to leave nothing unattempted in the effort to live in conformity with the highest thing within us." He then concludes, "Applying it, we shall conclude that the life of an intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else is man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well."32

8. Freedom is given a paradoxical treatment. Rationality implies considerable freedom and equality. But the views of Plato and Aristotle were elitist views in which the leisure class, for the most part, carry on the great intellectual life. Slaves, women, and lessor people do not have the same freedom. Freedom is not to be identified with democracy which is denounced by Plato and Aristotle as one of the worst forms of government. It was the democratics who put Socrates to death. In contrast to the emphasis on freedom, the utopian city that Plato envisions is a city where people perform as nature has equipped them and as education recognizes their ability. People who are talented as cobblers and carpenters do not have the right or freedom to rule the state. If this came to pass, then the state exists in injustice--each one is not doing what he is equipped to do.

9. Virtue is acclaimed by all three patriarchs of ancient philosophy. The four virtues, wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, receive considerable treatment in the works of these masters. Since man is rational then his thinking should be like the gods and this gives some measure of approval to his ethical thinking. Some things are condemned as outright wrongs such as "malice, shamelessness, envy, among feelings, and among actions adultery, theft, murder."33 Little is said about sex since sex was regarded as a natural biological phenomenon like eating and drinking. There is no extended discourse on the subject in the Ethics of Aristotle, although the Symposium of Plato assumes homosexuality to be the highest form of expressing love. Aristotle condemns homosexuality34 although later he seems to accept it.35

10. Conclusions: There is much appealing in the ancient Greek view of man. Man's rationality must not be denigrated. But the limits of reason need recognition, but to abrogate the mind as is the tendency in modern Oriental mystical groups is to deny nature. That part of Greek thought which denigrated the body was negative and tragic. The body does have problems with requirements for food, sleep, lust and other desires, but the element in Platonic thought that the body was a prison of punishment led to the harsh views that the body is evil, all material is evil, sex is evil, and flagellation of the body is the extreme logic of that particular emphasis.

The dichotomy of the body and soul as radically taught by Plato and later Descartes created philosophical problems that extend into the present. Particularly since Descartes philosophers have struggled over questions concerning the relationship between two radical entities like the soul which is immaterial and the body which is material. How can they interact? Platonic influence in Christian writers also created these same issues. We shall see that the Christian view stood in contrast to the Platonic although Christian writers "baptized" Plato and Aristotle to their own uses later.

C. The Judaeo-Christian View.

The Judaeo-Christian view has affinities to the Platonic, but the differences are consequential and important.

1. God created man and woman. The Genesis account of the Bible speaks of God--directly--not indirectly--creating man in his own image. In a real sense the human creature is man--male and female although our language does not carry this distinction anymore. In the recapitulation of the creation story about man in Genesis 2 man is made first, but it was not good for man to be alone. The animals were not suitable companions to be with man. From the side of the sleeping man, God created woman. She is designated companion to man. Husband and wife become one flesh, one union. This is one of the reasons that homosexuality is regarded as an abomination in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. It is against the order of creation. Sex is not an afterthought. It is not a punishment. Sexual relations have boundaries in the Christian view, but the sexual act is good and children are a gift of God. Children were regarded in the Old Testament as a sign of God's favor. Matrimonial sexual pleasure is one of the basic facts of the Bible. Contrary views are alien to the Bible.

2. Man is a living soul. Theologians and philosophers frequently talk about body and soul, but in a real sense this drifts in the direction of the Greek influence and makes man a dichotomy. Man is a living soul so that his existence is a unitary one. He is not two things, but one. This unity is expressed in the statement of Barth:

I am not only my soul; I am my soul only as I am also my body. I am not only my body; I am my body only as I am also my soul. Hence it is certainly not only my body which has awareness, and it is certainly not only my soul but also my body which thinks.36

Barth's comments reflect the Hebrew-Christian view of man. Had philosophy followed this view of man rather than the Platonic it would not have had the struggles of trying to deal with the problem of interaction between the two diverse entities.37

As a living soul, man is not to be liberated from his body. In contrast to the Platonic view of the immortality of the soul, the transformation of the body with man's renewal as a total being is the Christian view of the future life after death. Death is considered a great tragedy in the Christian view because a living person ceases to be. The immortality of the soul ignores the fact of death. Berdyaev declares:

The doctrine of the resurrection recognizes the tragic fact of death and means victory over it--which is not to be found in any doctrine of immortality, whether Orphic or Platonic or theosophical. Christianity alone faces death, recognizes both its tragedy and its meaning, but at the same time refuses to reconcile itself to it and conquers it.38

3. Man is created in the image of God. The Genesis account says, "Then God said, Let me make man in our image, after our likeness." As God is spirit, the image cannot be a physical image. Many statements in the Bible are anthropomorphic statements like "the arm, eyes, and ears of God." The Psalmist even talks about resting under the everlasting wings of God. The image of God in man consists in man's rational, moral, and spiritual existence before God. Man is rational in a way that animals are not, he is moral and responsible, and as a spiritual creature he is related to God in worship and communion.

But the Christian view of man involves something more. The standard of man is not the first man, Adam, who squandered his innocence, but the new man, Jesus, the Christ, who is God become man, or the God-man. Christian thought can talk about what man once was, but is no longer. It can talk about what man now is, in contrast to paradise, but it goes one step more. Man can become like Jesus through his salvation. He is not merely a model, but a redeemer. He is not a teacher of deliverance, He is deliverance. Jesus is the image of God incarnate.

4. Man, though created by God, is alienated from God. A gap exists between man and God and Christian thought lays the blame on man's shoulders. The first man disobeyed God's command and in that disobedience alienated himself from the intimate relationship he had with God. The chaos and misery that man feels within himself is related to that primeval event. Various explanations have been offered to explain man's problems: lack of wealth, bad environment, poor institutions, lack of education, culture, and others, but the Christian view of man's condition is that he is involved in sin which is disobeying God. Sin destroys man's relation to God, his relationship with others, and is self-destructive. Yet in spite of this, man is still the objective of God's love and concern. Man still finds his purpose and fulfillment in the God who created him. Augustine's response to God was "Thou hast made us for thyself, and we are restless until we rest in thee."39 This sums up man's need of God in Christian thought.

5. Man can only be man in relationship to God. The Bible underscores this in many ways. Jesus said, "I am come that you might have life and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). This analysis is made in another way by Kierkegaard when he says that man is body and soul with a relationship to Spirit. Man can exist without God, but not live without him.40 This is why there has been a strong missionary tradition in the church fed by the desire to reconcile all men to God through Jesus Christ.

6. Christian virtues are somewhat different from the Greeks. Virtues in the Greek tradition imply a potential for self-deliverance, a salvation by achievement and goodness. The Christian view of man is that he is helpless to achieve reconciliation with God. Reconciliation is related to crying to God in helplessness. Reconciliation comes when one turns from one's own model of seeking God, and turning to God in faith which is commitment to Christ. Once there is commitment by faith, conversion takes place, and in this conversion God gives a new beginning and new direction. This conversion or new beginning implies a new being, and after this a new lifestyle is called forth. Once there is a new beginning of spiritual life in Christ, faith then becomes supplemented by "virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection and love" (2 Pet. 1:7). The fruit of God's Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23). The basic Christian theme is agape--love that is not an emotion, but an attitude of concern for all--even one's enemies.

To shift contexts for a moment, there is in Greek philosophy, in Confucian, and other humanistic views, some talk about the "good man" or the "superior man." In these non-Christian views the good man is the goal of achievement of one's own strength. The Christian answer to the "good man" is restricted to Jesus: a person regarded as morally perfect. Such perfection is not achievable by anyone else. Because of the sinful deeds of man, Christians talk about salvation or deliverance which begins now and will be completed in the presence of God when his work is complete and man is transformed to the standard of Christ.

The Christian view takes a different look at the problem of evil in contrast to the Greek. The Greeks assumed that if one knows to do the good, he will do it. The Christians saw that man may know to reject an evil action, but will do it anyway because of selfishness, a manifestation of sin. Many people know the commandments, thou shalt not steal, commit adultery, etc., and believe that these are basic ethical principles apart from religious implications. The knowledge is only intellectual, or it is rejected because of selfishness or lust. In no ordinary sense of the word would the Christian say that knowledge brings virtue. Knowledge could bring virtue, but knowledge plus willful sinning only increases the degree of guilt.

7. It is an article of Christian thought that all men are equal before God. All men are creations of God. To deny this is to affirm practical atheism. History shows all kinds of inequities and justifications for these differences. Aristotle noted that "there can therefore be no friendship of a master for a slave as such, though there may be for him as a man." The slave has nothing in common with the master--"he is a living tool."41Paul, in contrast, expressing the Christian ideology, wrote Philemon that the slave Onesimus was sent back to him "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother" (Philemon 16). Ultimately the Christian attitude was to free the slave, but the practice lagged behind the ideology.

8. Assessment. Probably the greatest criticism of the Christian movement is not its philosophy, but its practice. But this can be leveled against the Greek tradition also. The philosophical utopias have never been seriously attempted. One of the good features of the Christian view of man is that it "alone deals with the whole man, with his origin and destination."42 The Christian position regards personality as one of the greatest facts in the cosmos. The Biblical view of man takes a positive attitude toward the body-existence of man in a way that some of the Greek views could not. The scientific view of man neglects the personality side of man because of the limitation of its method.

We now turn to one of the controversial problems in the philosophy of man.

II. The Mind-Body Problems

The body exists. Anyone can see this. But is there more than the body as the Christian and Greek views claim? Much depends upon the answer. The quality of life expected by man is measurably different if he is considered a responsible being who has a measure of self-determination. If man is only a body directed by stimuli coming to him, then it appears he cannot be too responsible. In fact, if this is all man is, one wonders how the idea of responsibility came into being in the first place. Is it a fiction? Is it part of man's real life?

The claim that there is more to man's life than the human body needs definition. It is called the traditional view of the self or mind, and it may be summed in the following ideas: the self is a created continuing substance of a spiritual nature, related mysteriously to the body, it is active, free, and immortal.43 In some fashion or other this view has been averred by such different people as Plato, Aristotle, and the Christian tradition, up to the modern times. With this short introduction, we can now turn to the basic question: does a self exist?

A. Does a Self Exist?

Any controversial question has at least two sides: yes and no; we will look at the negative side first.

1. No. There is no self as conceived in the traditional sense of the term above. Even people who reject the idea may use the word self or mind in a popular or customary sense without contradicting their opinion. Our philosophical considerations are restricted to the western culture primarily although the orient provides paradoxical examples of people denying and affirming the self at the same time.44 We turn now to consider persons and emphases that reject the existence of a self.

(l) David Hume. Probably the most widely printed quote on this subject, the non-existence of the self, comes from David Hume. He wrote:

There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our SELF: that we feel its existence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demonstration both of its perfect identity and simplicity . . . .

For my part, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myelf at any time without a perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity.45

As one of the big three patriarchs of the empirical tradition, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, Hume could never observe with his senses a self as a thing or substance, or object within himself. Thus the self did not exist. But by the same token he never observed his brain either.

But Hume did talk about himself. What did he mean? The self was an association or conglomeration of these different experiences that came through the senses. Various sensory impressions are received by the senses and the "I" is related to them in terms of order and seems to have some relation in cause and effect and resemblances of stimuli. The association involved is consistent with his claim that if no perceptions came he would be said not to exist. Hume's views have been influential in both philosophy and psychology.

Ironically, Hume came to confess skepticism about his position to the appendix of his work. He confessed:

But upon a more strict review of the section concerning personal identity, I find myself involved in such a labyrinth, that, I must confess, I neither know how to correct my former opinions, nor how to render them consistent. (He continued . . .)

But having thus loosened all our particular perceptions, when I proceed to explain the principle of connection, which binds them together, and makes us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity; I am sensible, that my account is very defective . . . .

In short, there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent: nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existence, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there would be no

difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding.46

Several problems are raised against Hume's position. First, a no-self view makes continuous identity impossible. How would Hume know that he is the same person that he was the day before? For that matter the hour before without some perception that he is the same. Then is sameness a perception? For once he had slept the night and no perceptions came to him, he had been annihilated. When he rises, how does he keep the same identity consciousness. Second, the same applies to memory. The years pass and many memories stand clearly in our minds although we do not have even a remote chance to be continually furnished with those lost perceptions. My memory of swimming in the Dead Sea is fresh, but my remoteness to the sea is distant. How can it be part of my "memory" today if there is not a continuousness about my being to retain such memories? Can an "annihilated self" in Hume's terms know the continuing memories to be mine? Third, value judgements become difficult on a non-self view. If the "self" is a summary of perceptions, how does one choose between those that are true and the false? Or, the good and the bad? Why not accept all perceptions for truth? Or, good?

Hume's empiricism has a long shadow of influence in philosophy and psychology. To some of the variants we will now turn.

(2) Materialism. Materialism rejects the existence of a self as defined above. The modern materialist adheres to physical phenomena only and words like "thought, reasoning, and love" must reduce themselves to physical phenomena. Various explanations have been given for this activity of reductionism, or the process where these concepts are stripped of their original meanings. (A) The unintelligibility thesis is that words like "thought, wishing, feeling" should be dropped from use because they have no real meaning. The mind or self refers to nothing. The unintelligiblity thesis has never been influential because it is difficult to show that there are no thoughts, feelings, etc. To rid ourselves of these words would be to weaken our powers of expression and communication. (B) The avowal theory explains thoughts, feelings, wishes, in terms of behavior, and not in terms of statements. When one remarks that he is bored, he is expressing an inner behavior in a verbal way. This theory would make sense if I stated that I am bored, but it cannot be used to refer to someone else, like "she is bored." It cannot be used to refer to her inner behavior accurately. Moreover, I can lie in making false statements but what behavior illustrates lying?

(C) Another attempt is to admit that these words, thoughts and feelings are meaningful, but must be explained in physicalistic terms, or in behavior terms. If I say I have a sharp pain in my leg, do I have the behavior that supports the claim? The problem with behaviorism here is that we can imagine the behavior without the pain actually being there. (D) The identity theory is the most widely accepted attempt to answer the problems of materialism. It seems

that thoughts, feelings, wishes, and the rest of the so-called mental phenomena are identified with, one and the same thing as, states and processes of the body (and, perhaps more specifically, states and processes of the nervous system, or even of the brain alone). Thus the having of a thought is identical with having such and such bodily cells in such and such states, other cells in other states.47

The identity theory means, then, that a mental and physical state are not really two different things, but one. When I say I love someone in a verbal way, this is really nothing more than a description of a physical attraction. In practice, according to the identity theory, the verbal description is merged into the description of a body state.

The identity theory may be criticized for a number of reasons, but we will consider only two. First, there does really exist the enjoyment of ideas that are unrelated to physical existence. A discussion of abstract theology is carried on for its own sake without regards for a physical stimulus to the body. People seem to glory in ideas. Second, the theory is based on the important fact that the identity has to coincide in space and time. Insufficient evidence precludes the discussion of time, but the area of space is open for discussion. The example of hunger may be used.48 Where does the thought of hunger occur? Not in your big toe, kidneys, lungs or leg, but in your head. In another example, it makes sense to point to your leg and cry that it has an intense pain "there" but you would not point to your head and say "my leg aches." The objection arises against the identity theory that an ache in the leg does not occur in the same place that the thought "I have an ache" occurs. Thus, it doesn't make sense to talk about identity in space since the physical pain occurs one place and the mental event occurs in another.

(3) Epiphenomenalism. This is another variation on the theme that a self does not really exist. The word was introduced by T.H. Huxley. On the subject of consciousness he wrote,

The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanisms of their body simply as a collateral product of its working, and to be as completely without any power modifying that working as the steam whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery. Their volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such changes.49

What Huxley says about brutes is applied by him to men. Epiphenomenalism appears to be a type of dualism admitting mental events or an apparent self, but it is a dualism that is greatly qualified if we can use the term at all. Mental events are caused by physical events, but mental events cannot cause physical events. It is a one way street in which the traffic flows from the physical to the mental.

The appeal of epiphenomenalism comes from the great influence of science in explaining phenomena in physical terms. We predict rain on the basis of air masses colliding rather than the rain dances of Indians. Fertility of the soil is increased by fertilizer and there is no use of fertility rites. The conclusion reached is that all physical phenomena--including the human body--can be explained in physical terms. This physical interpretation of the world and the self leaves no place for a real spiritual self or any real non-physical entity. As an illustration, a cut creates nerve waves to the brain, not mind, which causes a body to wince and to feel pain. Beginning with the physical cut to the reaction arising from the physical brain, the series of events has been without reference to a Mind or self. It is only an illusion that mental events have effects.50

Certain problems are raised against epiphenomenalism. The logic involved in the position is that the Golden Gate Bridge was built without a single thought. Sending astronauts to the moon would not be the result of thinking. The history of man as written under the terms of "decision, emotions, thoughts, and sensations" would be in error.51

The extremeness of this charge is modified some by the claim of the epiphenomenalist that the building of the Golden Gate bridge and the space program still require activity, only it is an activity of the physical brain, not a non-physical mind. The brain takes over the many functions usually attributed to the mind, thinking, wishing, deciding, etc.

In assessing this, the question may be posed: although the brain is a necessary physical condition required for "thinking, wishing, and deciding," is it the sufficient condition for explaining these items? Obviously, one cannot think, as we know it, without a brain. But is there the need of more than a brain--say a mind? The current interest in bio-feedback gives some illustration of the power of thought over the body. One can raise the temperature of the finger by means of thinking of it.

Another problem of epiphenomenalism is the semantical switch in describing our experiences. What was once called "mind's activities"--thinking, wishing, deciding, etc. are now called activities of the brain. The activities remain the same, but the source and cause are different.

The common ordinary experience of man seems to indicate that epiphenomenalism is wrong. People seem to make plans, mentally prepare a daily schedule and proceed to carry it out. The experience that common people, and all people, have in making judgements moves beyond the cause-effect world of epiphenomenalism. The fact is that people hesitate, worry, reflect on what is right and wrong, and eventually make a rational decision. Moreover, our way of knowing the world may be described from the standpoint of general ideas. We perceive a particular tree but we know and understand what that meaning of tree is by our general understanding of the idea of treeness. This holds true for the laws of physics, i.e., gravity, in which case we understand a particular object falling to the ground by a non-perceivable general thought about the law of gravity.

While epiphenomenalism makes a strong appeal to the physical sciences, it is not without its problems. Therefore we turn now to the alternate side of the question.

2. Yes, the self does exist.

In the opening of this section we talked about the idea of a self involving a spiritual nature that is related mysteriously to the body, active, free, and immortal. We now turn to the elaboration of this view from the standpoint of two different philosophical sources.

(l) Plato and Descartes.

The view of the self as taught by Plato and Descartes has been labeled extreme immaterialism. This will be in contrast to the position of Aristotle and Aquinas which will be labeled moderate immaterialism. The body-soul problem in Plato and Descartes involves the following. The soul is a radically different substance from the body and is in fact alien to it. The body is united to the soul to punish the soul. Its union with the body is temporary and unnecessary. The soul can exist and function without the body. The union of these two opposites may be likened to the relation between a motor and a chassis. It is functional but the motor doesn't need the chassis to run (in place) whereas the chassis needs the motor. Similarly, the body is not at all necessary for the functioning of the mind; being liberated from the body would be an improvement for the mind.

This extreme view has come under criticism in the modern era since Descartes particularly, and as stated before, it suffers from a lack of empirical evidence. But the views of Descartes raised a question about the soul that needed solving and it is a question over which much time has been spent. The question: how does a radical substance like Spirit or soul have a relationship with a body and vice versa?

If you do not believe in a soul or self as we have seen in Hume, materialism, and so on, then the relationship-problem doesn't exist. But if there are two diverse entities as in Plato and Descartes, how do you solve the problem? Descartes proposed a solution related to the pineal gland--a hybrid gland of the two diverse elements--but this was unsupportable. It only moved the problem one step backwards. We shall look at two of the attempts to solve these problems.

(A) Parallelism.

The greatest philosophical name attached to the view of parallelism was Leibniz (1646-1716) who thought in terms of the body and mind acting independently of one another, but always in harmony with one another. The usual illustration is that involving two clocks so well made that they keep time in harmony with one another. They tick, strike and move parallel to one another, and the reason they can do this is found in their pre-established harmony created by their designer, the clock-maker. So man in body and soul has been designed with such accuracy that man's body will always have the physical accompaniment of the mental thought. Later parallelists used illustrations like debits and assets in the loan of money relating to the same transaction, or the convex and concave sides of a line that describe a line from two different ways.

Parallelism does not have the historical appeal of interactionism because of severe problems. First, our problem has been in understanding body and spirit. In Leibniz the solution makes an appeal to God's preestablished harmony which then makes the solution outside of man's natural existence. We could then ask the question of how God as Spirit works on a body. This pushes the problem further back from man and into an area of no hope of settling because of God's distance from man. Second, questions like "if one clock stops, will the other keep going" arises. There seems to be no good answer to these riddles.

(b) Interactionism.

Since Descartes' day interactionism has been assumed and accepted widely, but has been widely attacked also. It means that body/soul interact and effect one another. Epiphenomenalism is a one-sided doctrine in which the body effects the mental, but interactionism is a two-way street of the mind effecting the body as well. Advocates of interactionism argue that mental events do effect physical events. Such examples as worry causing ulcers, fear causing the quickening of the heart-beat, anticipation leading to physical activity, the joy of winning causing people to jump up and down and other examples are used to indicate this truth. Claims are made that even hypnotism can raise blisters on the skin without heat.

Interactionism is at a disadvantage in proving its case concerning mental events effecting physical events. It is argued that if one is pricked with a needle and jumps and says "ouch," "how could it be known that it was the mental event of feeling pain rather than the brain events concomitant with the consciousness of pain which produced the wince?"52

Further, one of the problems of interactionism is trying to separate actions related to the brain and actions related to the mind. Epiphenomenalism and materialism argue for brain events at best, but not mental events. Interactionism does make a distinction between the brain and the mind and argues that the mind or self is the cause of physical events. There does appear to be examples of clinical patients who are disturbed by problems of ethics and this ethical disturbance causes physical disabilities. A bookkeeper is asked by his boss to introduce procedures that are illegal and false. His ethical character makes it impossible to do this and keep his job. He developed a pain in his arm disabling him from work. The psychiatrist who is ultimately asked to deal with the issue makes the man face up to his boss, and the shady business practices, but in so doing "regains" the use of his arm.

Putting aside the criticisms of interactionism for the moment, the interactionist is not able to explain how mental events effect physical events except that they do. Some interactionists accept it as such and treat the unanswered question as an "open question."53 The inability of answering the last detail of how the mind effects the body may be like the problem of evil--it will always be around staring us in the face, but all the theories do not come off neat and tidy.

So far we have viewed the issue from the standpoint of extreme immaterialism with two proposals for explaining the relationship of the two extreme entities. We turn now to a view that accepts the reality of the self, but without its radical immaterialism.

(2) Aristotle and Aquinas.

Aristotle did not accept the extreme view of the spirit that Plato had. For Plato, man's soul could exist and think outside of a body, but Aristotle taught that the good of the soul is to be united to a body so that it can think and exercise its abilities. Adler notes, concerning Aristotle,

In this view, the soul is inseparable from the organic body of which it is the form, just as the seal impressed in the wax is inseparable from the wax; and this applies to the human or rational soul just as much as it applies to the sensitive souls of brute animals, and to the vegetative souls of plants. What is true of soul as the form or act of the organic body as a whole is also true, with one exception, of the parts of the

soul, i.e., each of its various powers is the

power of the body, a living organ. Thus the power of digestion is embodied in the stomach, the power of vision or imagination, in the brain; and so on.54

The idea of soul is more generalized in Aristotle than modern use and may be translated into a term like life force, or principle. In different species there are different life forces and forms. Plants are living, but do not have the qualities of animals which are sensitive and mobile. Humans have yet another life principle that incorporates much of that common to the lower forms of living, but also some differences.55 Since each living form has different powers due to their different life principles, man also has a different power; nous or mind. Soul then becomes "the entelachy of the body, so that the two form one substance."56

The result of this is that man has more in common with the lower animals than the Platonists would admit, but neither could Aristotle admit that man was merely a body and brain as the modern epiphenomenalists claim. Oddly enough, this distinction found in Aristotle and Aquinas is not widely known and used. Much of the debate centers in the extreme position of Plato and Descartes. Such an issue would have been a no-issue for Aristotle. This is not an Aristotelian solution because in Aristotle "there can be no mind-body problem."57

The reasoning involved in this unique position known as moderate immaterialism can be summed in the following statement by Adler:

(l) Bodily events or processes, particularly brain states or processes, are a necessary--an indispensable or sine qua non--condition for mental acts, such as the acts of forming and using concepts, or making judgements and inferences . . . .

(2) But brain action is not the sufficient condition or sole cause of the aforementioned mental acts . . . . (of man)

(3) The additional cause required for the explanation of these acts is the mind or intellect conceived not as an immaterial substance, but as a power possessed by man differing from all of his other powers in one respect and one respect only; namely, that it is an immaterial power not embodied in a physical organ, such as the stomach, the eye, or the brain.58

The significance of the third proposition is that one must grant an immaterial power to explain mental events that are an exclusive experience of man. The unique capacity of man lies in his ability to frame completely abstract universals. Abstractions of this kind are never seen and cannot be explained in neurological terms, or physical terms.

The brain experiences only the individual object in the world, but the immaterial power or reality of man's existence enables him to think abstractly about the individual object. This kind of thinking distinguishes man from other animals who also can think. Thinking in animals can be that of

learning from experience, generalizing, discriminating, and abstracting, solving problems by trial and error, or by insight . . . . The evidence is both plain and ample that they can think in all these ways. But it is equally plain from the observation of their behavior, in the laboratory or in the field, that they cannot think in any of the following ways: They cannot think about objects that are not perceptually present as well as about those that are; and with regard to objects of thought, present or absent, they cannot make judgements or engage in reasoning (i.e., think that such and such is or is not the case, or think that if such and such is the case, then so and so is not).59

In somewhat closer agreement with the identity theory, Aristotle and Aquinas believe that "acts of perception, sensitive memory, imagination and cogitation are acts of bodily organs."60 But in contrast to the no-self theory of the identity theory,

only conceptual acts--such as the acts of understanding or concept-formation and the acts whereby concepts are used in judgement and inferences--cannot be merely acts of the brain, though they never occur without acts of the brain, since the exercise of the sensitive powers is empirically discovered to be an indispensable condition for man's exercise of his intellectual or conceptual power.61

Thus an immaterial power is not necessary to explain perceptual acts, but only conceptual acts. For example, a puppy can see the light without an immaterial power just as I can. But the puppy cannot reason to the law of gravity as man does.

The argument leading up to the conclusions above is related to the following two propositions and a conclusion:

The First proposition asserts that the concepts whereby we understand what different kinds of classes of things are like consist in meanings or intentions that are universal.

The second proposition asserts that nothing that exists physically is actually universal; anything that is embodied in matter exists as an individual; and as such it can be a particular instance of this class or that.

From these two propositions, the conclusion follows that our concepts must be immaterial. If they were acts of a bodily organ such as the brain, they would exist in matter, and so would be individual. But they are universal. Hence they do not and cannot exist in matter, and the power of conceptual thought by which we form and use concepts must be an immaterial power, i.e., one the acts of which are not the acts of a bodily organ.62

The argument from Adler appears abstract and we will try to give some concreteness to it. We understand specific things by general ideas. There are a number of objects in my house called by the word "chair." Each of these are different. No two are alike, but I call them by a term that is conceptual--chair. The visible chair is specific and particular, but the conceptual "chair" is a general or universal term, and does not exist in a physical sense. Since I never see the concept of chair-ness we speak of this as an abstraction. Abstractions are the result of immaterial power of conceptualization which man has and these are not the result of seeing the abstraction. Another example relates to the idea of gravity. We see one apple fall from the tree. My only experience is one apple after another. But there is something about my existence that enables me to reason from the single experience of a falling apple to the law of gravity. The law of gravity is never seen; it is a generalization, an abstraction.

That is why Aristotle and Aquinas insisted on the self as an existent reality with immaterial power of abstraction. In a sense, the argument has been like our thinking about the atom. No one has seen an atom, but our thought about the atom is the result of a hypothesis and is useful in explaining the reality of nature. Here, the immaterial power of the self is required to explain the nature of conceptual thought.

III. What is the Significance of One's View of Man?

We might begin with: what difference does it make? If man is what the scientific view says he is, and that only, one is led to conclude that the traditional ethical, religious, and philosophical questions are empty. Simpson believed that man is not just an ordinary animal and argued for ethics because life in the world demands something ethical. But he saw no place for values related to God. A similar stance is taken by other writers.

Others have argued that man's nature and origins are important. If man is not a unique creature created in the image of God, then man is nothing but a sophisticated animal and there is no meaning to his value system or his spiritual exercise.

There are significant implications growing out of one's view of what man is. Consider the logical implications of the materialistic evolutionary view of man. Man is involved in the continuity of life stream from the lowly amoeba to the crown of the stream, man. Man is a product of blind evolution and is different from other forms only in degree. If man is one with other animals, is there any way of saying that killing off people is any more wrong than killing off rabbits? How do we establish that man should not kill man? We do it by law, but if over-population becomes too big a problem, would it be wrong to rescind the law? On what principle would it be wrong?

We are inclined to say that man should not kill man because man is something special. This view of man's uniqueness as a special creature has been generally maintained from Greek philosophy to modern times. It is not a picture of the victor or the stronger over the weaker. Man commonly condemns the slaughter of the innocent regardless of where it takes place.

Along with this uniqueness is man's involvement in meaningful ethical and moral choices. This is to say that man is differed in kind, rather than degree. Animals do not have such moral power and ability. If man is one with animals and explained only as a creature of an usual material brain, then what happens to moral choice and freedom? What basis is there for it?

There is an implication for spiritual values. The scientific method seems to preclude the possibility of God. But if reason prevails then God becomes a rational alternative. If the moderate immaterialist's solution to man's nature is correct, it gives rational credence to the possiblity of understanding and accepting a rational view of God. If an immaterial power is part of man's existence, the idea of an immaterial Being (God) would not be unusual. If the materialist view is true, then if one desires to believe in God, it must be as fideists, a person who accepts a truth about God without requiring any reasons--which in this case, there would be no good ones.

The philosophy of man is crucial. The contemporary world is divided over man, his abilities, hopes, and aspirations. The Marxist world cannot be understood without knowing something of its philosophy of man. The Christian view cannot be appreciated without knowing its philosophy of man. The conflict between secular society and Christian thought is related to conflicting views of what man is.

We now turn to a review of six different philosophies and in each of them we will note their interpretation of man.

44For example, in Buddhism, the definition of the self that we have formulated is rejected, but nevertheless, there is some permanence to the self as it is related to endless reincarnations. But at the same time there is a dissolution or break-up of the self at death.

45David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section VI, as quoted correctly in Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957, edited by Smith and Grene.

49From an essay "On the Hypothesis that All Animals are automata, and Its History," quoted in Castell, p. 73.

50Shaffer, op. cit., p. 69.

51Ibid.

52Ibid., p. 72.

53Castell, op. cit., p. 94-101.

54Mortimer J. Adler, The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1967, p. 219. 55This distinction precludes Aristotle from accepting the idea of reincarnation held by the Pythagoreans who believed that one could return as a lower animal.

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